Gophers voted third in west via preseason B1G poll

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The BIG West will beat on each other. IMO, the difference is Becky has a much easier crossover with IU, R and OSU at home. Iowa is a bit softer than ours
 

I could see a case for Ill and Neb finishing ahead of the Gophers as well as their finishing 2nd behind Iowa...who has Flecks number.
 


Just beat Iowa. Our pre-season ranking will improve if we can just prove that we can beat Iowa.
 

saintpauljeff said:
Gophers could hire Nick Saban and they’d still be picked third LOL. They’ll never ever be given a ranking, they have to earn it by winning rivalry games consistently and winning div/conf titles.
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I don't think that's all that ... unfair either.

Do the thing and you'll be favored, not and ... well yeah.
 

Wisconsin is dismantling their bread and butter offense and going Air Raid with unproven QB's. The golden boy defensive coordinator is gone and nobody seems to be worried. There is a lot of hype for the Badgers but I would not put my money on them winning the west. It all comes down to that Iowa game for us IMO.
 

TurfGopher said:
Wisconsin is dismantling their bread and butter offense and going Air Raid with unproven QB's. The golden boy defensive coordinator is gone and nobody seems to be worried. There is a lot of hype for the Badgers but I would not put my money on them winning the west. It all comes down to that Iowa game for us IMO.
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Even if you think they can pull that off .... it seems like a thing that might take a season or so to get set and organized.
 



saintpauljeff said:
Gophers could hire Nick Saban and they’d still be picked third LOL. They’ll never ever be given a ranking, they have to earn it by winning rivalry games consistently and winning div/conf titles.
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Sad, but true. It's just like the Vikings...I'll never, ever pick them to win the Super Bowl until they win a Super Bowl.
 


Wisconsin has an easy schedule.

They have 5 games where if they show up, they should win by 2 scores.
They have 3 more games they "Should" win where they will be more than a 3 point favorite.
That's 8 wins.
They then have Ill, IA, MN, and OSU. One could argue, OSU is the best draw this year of PSU, MI, and OSU. Too early to know, but a possibility.

If they win one of those, they have 9 wins most likely. If they win 2, they win the West easy.
If they win 3 or 4, we get to hear CFP talk for far too long.

They won't even be a great team, but they will likely have a lot of wins. If they don't win 7, something very bad happened in Luke Fickell's first year.
 

Dano564 said:
Wisconsin has an easy schedule.

They have 5 games where if they show up, they should win by 2 scores.
They have 3 more games they "Should" win where they will be more than a 3 point favorite.
That's 8 wins.
They then have Ill, IA, MN, and OSU. One could argue, OSU is the best draw this year of PSU, MI, and OSU. Too early to know, but a possibility.

If they win one of those, they have 9 wins most likely. If they win 2, they win the West easy.
If they win 3 or 4, we get to hear CFP talk for far too long.

They won't even be a great team, but they will likely have a lot of wins. If they don't win 7, something very bad happened in Luke Fickell's first year.
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I just think it's too early to tell or to draw these conclusions about WI.

In his first season as Nebraska HC, Scott Frost had crazy hype that his magic at UCF would translate into instant success at Nebraska. About 4 games into that season, you could tell the magic was not happening.

I'm not saying that Fickell is like Frost or that the 2023 Badgers will have the same record as the 2018 Huskers. But even with an "easy schedule" with seemingly inferior opponents, a complete change in scheme, coaches, QB, etc at WI will not be an instant success.
 



TurfGopher said:
Wisconsin is dismantling their bread and butter offense and going Air Raid with unproven QB's. The golden boy defensive coordinator is gone and nobody seems to be worried. There is a lot of hype for the Badgers but I would not put my money on them winning the west. It all comes down to that Iowa game for us IMO.
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I’m really looking forward to them running the 4-2-5 and then getting into a second quarter where they lose Time of possession 14:00-1:00 because they went 3 and out 2-3 times with 6-7 incompletions and that was their whole quarter against Iowa, Illinois, or Minnesota.

It’s a different kind of football. It can be really successful. If becoming a spread offense automatically took your program to the next level Brewster would still be here, richrod at Michigan, etc
 

There is never rest for the weary for PJ Fleck. The final Big Ten West teams are getting tougher. The Gophers never cease to surprise.

They will be in a slugfest to earn the title. Dull is not the word that is associated with the current Gophers. Everything starts with the Offensive Line and ends with the Defensive Line.

If AAK and the Gophers play close to mistake-free football, stay tuned to be entertained with one of the most explosive Gopher teams on record.
 

An experienced Gophers squad underperformed in the Purdue and Iowa games last year, forfeiting their easy-B1G-schedule “dividend” and likely West Division championship. Maybe this year’s less experienced (but perhaps more talented) Gopher squad can win the division, even though saddled with a very difficult B1G schedule. Things like that happen. But we’ll probably need the 2023 Badgers to drop a few “should win” B1G games—similarly forfeiting their easy-B1G-schedule dividend—for the Gophers to come out on top this year. And we’ll need to beat Iowa. No way do the Gophers win the West if PJ loses his 7th straight game to Iowa. The Gophers’ path to the B1G West title runs through Iowa City. Not true for all B1G West teams, but unfortunately true for us. Go Gophers.
 
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The Gophers need to stop those letdown games against BGSU and losing to Iowa in close winnable games.

They are close to winning the Big Ten West Titles outright. This season is their last chance. The Big Ten is one conference in 2024.

The doubting national prognosticators will always doubt. Bring on more Power-five ranked teams. It will benefit Gopher football in the long run.

The Gophers are on a solid foundation that will only get better. They play as a well-oiled team with not very many superstars. Wait until PJ Fleck cracks the recruiting dilemma. He is already doing some of that through the Transfer Portal. IMHO, he is one or two extra superstars away from overtaking a few more teams in the Big Ten.
 
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